What Is This Thing, Really?

This awful thing is the new logo for the University of California system. James Fallows is distraught, saying he will never, ever buy anything with this ugly logo on it. I can’t blame him a bit. Who on earth thought this thing was attractive?

What does it look like? It looks like a depleted boiled sausage at the bottom of a pot. It looks like a turd making the final swirl before extinction. It looks like the tongue of some docile creature, rolling in its mouth. It looks like … what?

UPDATE: A reader who works for the University of California system, and who hates the logo, reports personal knowledge that the designer of the logo, and her family, have received death threats over the thing. Good grief.